Commercial aircraft are used to transport passengers between various locations. A commercial aircraft generally flies according to a predetermined flight plan between a departure airport and a destination airport. The flight plan includes a path from the departure airport to the destination airport, and may also include a flight time between the locations.
For various reasons, commercial, business, and general aviation aircraft may be diverted from a flight plan. For example, inclement weather may cause an air traffic controller to divert an aircraft from a flight plan. Due to inclement weather (such as rain or snow), visibility at a destination airport may be limited. Accordingly, an air traffic controller may then determine that separation times between landing aircraft need to be increased. As another example, flight congestion at a destination airport may also cause the air traffic controller to divert an aircraft from a flight plan into a holding pattern. An aircraft may be diverted into a holding pattern, which deviates from the flight plan, in order to accommodate landing delays at a particular destination airport, whether due to inclement weather, flight congestion, and/or the like.
Various airports are extremely busy, such that a relatively high number of aircraft are scheduled to land at various times during a typical day. An air traffic controller communicates with a pilot of a particular aircraft to provide landing information. The pilot may discover that the scheduled arrival time has been delayed, at which point the pilot needs to determine if the aircraft has sufficient fuel to safely land at the updated, later landing time, or if the aircraft should be diverted to an alternate airport. As can be appreciated, additional delays may occur, which may further set back a time of arrival for a particular aircraft.